Penny Plain Part 21

"Mebbe," said Bella, "but the auld rhyme's oftener true:

"'Be a la.s.sie ne'er sae black, Gie her but the name o' siller, Set her up on Tintock tap An' the wind'll blaw a man till her.

Be a la.s.sie ne'er sae fair, Gin she hinna penny-siller, A flea may fell her in the air Ere a man be evened till her.'

"I would like fine to see Miss Jean get a guid man, for she's no' a bad la.s.sie, but I doot she'll never manage't."

"Oh, Beller, you do take an 'opeless view of things. I think it's because you wear black so much. Now I must say I like a bit o' bright colour. I think it gives one bright thoughts."

"I aye wear black," said Bella firmly, as she carried the supper dishes to the scullery, "and then, as the auld wifie said, 'Come daith, come sacrament, I'm ready!'"

CHAPTER XIV

"Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon, may a man buy for a remuneration?"--_Comedy of Errors_.

The living-room at The Rigs was the stage of many plays. Its uses ranged from the tent of a menagerie or the wigwam of an Indian brave to the Forest of Arden.

This December night it was a "wood near Athens," and to Mhor, if to no one else, it faithfully represented the original. That true Elizabethan needed no aids to his imagination. "This is a wood," said Mhor, and a wood it was. "Is all our company here?" and to him the wood was peopled by Quince and Snug, by Bottom the weaver, by Puck and Oberon. t.i.tania and her court he reluctantly admitted were necessary to the play, but he did not try to visualise them, regarding them privately as blots. The love-scenes between Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, were omitted, because Jock said they were "_awful_ silly."

It was Friday evening, so Jock had put off learning his lessons till the next day, and, as Bully Bottom, was calling over the names of his cast.

"Are we all met?"

"Pat, pat," said Mhor, who combined in his person all the other parts, "and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal; this green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action as we will do it before the duke."

Pamela Reston, in her usual place, the corner of the sofa beside the fire, threaded her needle with a bright silk thread, and watched the players amusedly.

"Did you ever think," she asked Jean, who sat on a footstool beside her--a glowing figure in a Chinese coat given her by Pamela, engaged rather incongruously in darning one of Jock's stockings--"did you ever think what it must have been like to see a Shakespeare play for the first time? Was the Globe filled, I wonder, with a quite unexpectant first night audience? And did they realise that the words they heard were deathless words? Imagine hearing for the first time:

'When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver white....'

and then--'The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.'

Did you ever try to write, Jean?"

"Pamela," said Jean, "if you drop from Shakespeare to me in that sudden way you'll be dizzy. I have thought of writing and trying to give a truthful picture of Scottish life--a cross between _Drumtochty_ and _The House with the Green Shutters_--but I'm sure I shall never do it. And if by any chance I did accomplish it, it would probably be reviewed as a 'feebly written story of life in a Scots provincial town,' and then I would beat my pen into a hatpin and retire from the literary arena. I wonder how critics can bear to do it. I couldn't sleep at nights for thinking of my victims--"

"You sentimental little absurdity! It wouldn't be honest to praise poor work."

Jean shook her head. "They could always be a little kind ... Pamela, I love myself in this coat. You can't think what a delight colours are to me." She stopped, and then said shyly, "You have brought colour into all our lives. I can see now how drab they were before you came."

"Oh dear, no, Jean, your life was never drab. It could never be drab whatever your circ.u.mstances, you have so much happiness within yourself.

I don't think anything in life could ever quite down you, and even death--what of death, Jean?"

Jean looked up from her stocking. "As Boswell said to Dr. Johnson, 'What of death, Sir?' and the great man was so angry that the little twittering genius should ask lightly of such a terrifying thing that he barked at him and frightened him out of the room! I suppose the ordinary thing is never to think about death at all, to keep the thought pushed away. But that makes people so _afraid_ of it. It's such a bogey to them. The Puritans went to the other extreme and dressed themselves in their grave-clothes every day. Wasn't it Samuel Rutherford who advised people to 'forefancy their latter end'? I think that's where Great-aunt Alison got the idea; she certainly made us 'forefancy' ours! But apart from what death may mean to each of us--life itself gets all its meaning from death. If we didn't know that we had all to die we could hardly go on living, could we?"

"Well," said Pamela, "it would certainly be difficult to bear with people if their presence and our own were not utterly uncertain. And if we knew with surety when we rose in the morning that for another forty years we would go on getting up, and having a bath and dressing, we would be apt to expire with ennui. We rise with alacrity because we don't know if we shall ever put our clothes on again."

Jean gave a little jump of expectation. "It's frightfully interesting.

You never do know when you get up in the morning what will happen before night."

"Most people find that a little wearing. It isn't always nice things that happen, Jean."

"Not always, of course, but far more nice things than nasty ones."

"Jean, I'm afraid you're a chirping optimist. You'll reduce me to the depths of depression if you insist on being so bright. Rather help me to rail against fate, and so cheer me."

"Do you realise that Davie will be home next week?" said Jean, as if that were reason enough for any amount of optimism. "I think, on the whole, he has enjoyed his first term, but he was pretty homesick at first. He never actually said so, but he told us in one letter that he smelt the tea when he made it, for it was the one thing that reminded him of home. And another time he spoke with pa.s.sionate dislike of the pollarded trees, because such things are unknown on Tweedside. I'm so glad he has made quite a lot of friends. I was afraid he might be so shy and unforthcoming that he would put people off, but he writes enthusiastically about the men he is with. It is good for him to be made to leave his work, and play games; he is keen about his footer and they think he will row well! The man who has rooms on the same staircase seems a very good sort. I forget who he is--it's quite a well-known family--but he has been uncommonly kind to Davie. He wants him to go home with him next week, but of course Davie is keen to get back to Priorsford. Besides, you can't visit the stately homes of England on thirty s.h.i.+llings, and that's about Davie's limit, dear lamb! Jock and Mhor are looking forward with joy to hear him speak. They expect his accent to have suffered an Oxford change, and Jock doesn't think he will be able to remain in the room with him and not laugh."

"I expect Jock will be 'affronted,'" said Pamela. "But you aren't the only one who is expecting a brother, Jean, girl. Any moment I may hear that Biddy is in London. He wired from Port Said that he would come straight to Priorsford. I wonder whether I should take rooms for him in the Hydro, or in one of these nice old hotels in the Nethergate? I wish I could crush him into Hillview, but there isn't any room, alas!"

"I wish," said Jean, and stopped. She had wanted in her hospitable way to say that Pamela's brother must come to The Rigs, but she checked the impulse with a fear that it was an absurd proposal. She was immensely interested in this brother of Pamela's. All she had heard of him appealed to her imagination, for Jean, c.u.mbered as she was with domestic cares, had an adventurous spirit, and thrilled to hear of the perils of the mountains, the treks behind the ranges for something hidden, all the daring escapades of an adventure-loving young man with time and money at his disposal. She had made a hero of Pamela's "Biddy," but now that she was to see him she shrank from the meeting. Suppose he were a supercilious sort of person who would be bored with the little town and the people in it. And the fact that he had a t.i.tle complicated matters, Jean thought. She could not imagine herself talking naturally to Lord Bidborough. Besides, she thought, she didn't know in the least how to talk to men; she so seldom met any.

"I expect," she broke out after a silence, "your brother will take you away?"

"For Christmas, I think," said Pamela, "but I shall come back again. Do you realise that I've been here two months, Jean?"

"Does it seem so short to you?"

"In a way it does; the days have pa.s.sed so pleasantly. And yet I seem to have been here all my life; I feel so much a part of Priorsford, so akin to the people in it. It must be the Border blood in my veins. My mother loved her own country dearly. I have heard my aunt say that she never felt at home at Bidborough or Mintern Abbas. I am sure she would have wanted us to know her Scots home, so Biddy and I are going to Champertoun for Christmas. My mother had no brothers, and everything went to a distant cousin. He and his wife seem friendly people and they urge us to visit them."

"That will mean a lovely Christmas for you," Jean said.

Here Mhor stopped being an Athenian reveller to ask that the sofa might be pushed back. The scene was now the palace of Theseus, and Mhor, as the Prologue, was addressing an imaginary audience with--"Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show."

Pamela and Jean removed themselves to the window-seat and listened while Jock, covered with an old skin rug, gave a realistic presentment of the Lion, that very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.

The 'tedious brief' scene was drawing to an end, when the door opened and Mrs. M'Cosh, with a scared look in her eyes and an excited squeak in her voice, announced, "Lord Bidborough."

A slim, dark young man stood in the doorway, regarding the dishevelled room. Jock and Mhor were still writhing on the floor, the chairs were pushed anyway, Pamela's embroidery frame had alighted on the bureau, the rugs were pulled here and there.

Pamela gave a cry and rushed at her brother, forgetting everything in the joy of seeing him. Then, remembering her hostess, she turned to Jean, who still sat on the window-seat, her face flushed and her eyes dark with excitement, the blood-red mandarin's coat with its embroidery of blue and mauve and gold vivid against the dark curtains, and said, "Jean, this is Biddy!"

Jean stood up and held out a shy hand.

"And this is Jock--and Mhor!"

"Having a great game, aren't you?" said the newcomer.

"Not a game," Mhor corrected him, "a play, _Midsummer Night's Dream_."

"No, are you? I once played in it at the O.U.D.S. I wanted to be Bully Bottom, but I wasn't much good, so they made me Snug the joiner. I remember the man who played Puck was a wonder, about as light on his feet and as swift as the real Puck. A jolly play."

"Biddy," said his sister, "why didn't you wire to me? I have taken no rooms."

"Oh, that's all right--a porter at the station, a most awfully nice chap, put me into a sort of fly and sent me to one of the hotels--a jolly good little inn it is--and they can put me up. Then I asked for Hillview, mentioning the witching name of Miss Bella Bathgate, and they sent a boy with me to find the place. Miss Bathgate sent me on here.